Just fitted aluminium panels and rear tub to my Haynes roadster. I have left the protective plastic film in place at this stage. When I remove the film the aluminium will start oxidising and become dull.

What do most people do to these panels? I have looked at many threads but not found an answer, also looked at detailing world and other sites for preferred method of protection. There is confusing array of products but very little agreement.

Ideally I would like to leave the aluminium unpainted but want it to remain as shiny as possible without need to repeatedly polish it. Can I have some guidance from those of you who have fitted aluminium car panels.
Many thanks

My only advice unfortunately is to expect the panels to never look as good as you want them to.

I covered mine.

I´m going to paint mine, you should use an etch primer on the sheetmetal before the primer and paint. Clearcoat, carefully wet sanded up to 1200 grit, and polish it with a polishing wax.

Polish the panels
The best stuff is the Autoglym metal polish, but Tcut is pretty good as a starter

Steve

Ash (Blackbird Rush on here) vinyl wrapped the alloy panels on his last car to match the rest of the bodywork

before:


after:



and if you want to go back to bare alloy you only need to peel it off

(hope he doesn't mind me stealing his pics....)



[Edited on 9/4/2014 by mcerd1]

I powder coated all of mine...panels were dip cleaned before powder coating.....Probably won't last on exposed areas, but it looks good IVA :-)

Just invest in some decent polishing kit. As long as you have a angry grinder of any size aluminium polishing is pretty easy. The problem is that people try all sorts of half hearted methods like doing it by hand. See the link below for how its done.


Polishing Link

I polished mine to start with then gave up. If I did it all again I would just paint all the Ali silver. Gives 99% of the look with 1 of the effort.

I now use California (or is it Kalifornia) Customs Original Purple Metal polish, beats everything else I've
tried

Wrap it but not in fake carbon

Thanks very much for all the advice